Aussie voices

At work, we have an open cubicle arrangement. When I first got here I was a bit put off by it, it's so open and you can hear everyone. How do you get any work done? Unlike the cubicle farm at CDC, the walls here are see through and half-height, so there's really no privacy. But, it actually works quite well, better than I anticipated. It's nice to be close to everyone else and there's an underlying politeness and respect by all because it's more open.

One advantage is hearing other people talk amongst themselves. I love the accents! The accents don't sound as weird to me as they did when I first got here, and I quite like listening to them.

Over the wall behind me is a guy with a deep voice, very sonorous, and I really like his phraseology... "watch your phraseology, young man"....anyone? Music Man....anyone???... moving on...

Anyway, I like listening to the Aussies talk. That's the point of this post.

It'll be interesting to see how weird people at home sound when I go home in February. Or how weird I sound to people. The minute I open my mouth here, people ask where I"m from in North America. It's hilarious actually, no one asks if I'm American - they obviously don't want to offend any Canadians. So I'm asked if I'm a Canadian, or if I'm North American. Yep. I never thought of myself that way before, but I guess technically that's what I am.

As much as I like the Aussie accent and all its variants, I feel like I can't hear the North American accents anymore. There is a woman from Canada here in the office and she just sounds like everyone else to me. It's all very 'fine-line' type of stuff.